The Kent Ridge Common, 29 May 2009
Kum Hong: I think it’s important to first define the purpose of JCS. It was originally positioned as being a scheme to save jobs - but in the course of the Budget debate, it was clarified as being intended to reduce business costs, but structured in such a way as to encourage businesses to save Singaporean jobs.
To the extent that it reduced business costs, of course JCS has worked. And to answer the PAP MPs, yes JCS is preferable to cutting the employers’ CPF contribution rate for the purpose of reducing business costs, but that is a very narrow way of framing the question (i.e. solely in terms of reducing business costs).
But if you want to assess its effectiveness in saving Singaporean jobs, then it is impossible to definitively conclude either way, and the Government itself had basically said so as much. We can only guesstimate. While feedback from employers has been uniformly positive, I would nevertheless take that with some salt since they have a very strong self-interest in seeing the scheme continue (since it is essentially “free money” for them).
Read More
